IE team pokes fun at rapid-release Firefox 6

To congratulate Mozilla on shipping Firefox 6, Microsoft sent a mere cupcake rather than a full cake, a little ribbing over the fact that new versions of Firefox arrive more frequently but with a smaller set of new features.
Jonathan Nightingale

Matching Firefox's new rapid-release development cycle, Microsoft's Internet Explorer team has downsized the traditional congratulatory cake it sends to its browser rival.

Under the rapid-release program, new versions of the browser ship every six weeks, which means the change in features from the earlier version is correspondingly smaller. No doubt Microsoft--which is still using the big-change, infrequent-update approach with IE--was poking fun at the new release philosophy when it sent the diminutive cake.

The first IE cake I noticed was for shipping Firefox 3 in 2008, but there have been others since then. Each bears the same message: "Congratulations on shipping. Love, the IE Team."

In looking back over the history, though, I noticed that Firefox 5--which gave an early taste of the rapid-release program when it arrived three months after Firefox 4--also received a cupcake. Evidently shrinking the congratulatory baked goods already is the new tradition.